The crisis of homelessness impacts every major city in America. As Recycled Living’s founder Charlie Abrams says:

“Growing up in Portland Oregon, I saw the devastating effect homelessness had on those around me. At this same time, my city's plastic pollution was at a never-before-seen level. Driving in from the Portland airport you could see the 9 tons of plastic that sat on our highway. Our city decided to get involved, but it ended up being for the worse. They dislocated anyone living without a home, putting them in designated mass campsites under bridges and far away from the public eye. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these mass campsites quickly spread the virus rapidly, having severe repercussions.

My city's effort to combat these two issues consequently made them worse. However, I realized that there was a connection between plastic and homelessness not yet seen by my city officials. What if we could treat plastic not as a problem but as the catalyst for a solution?

With my experience in engineering and activism, I turned this innovative idea into the project Recycled Living”